She was not a human,

But better than many of them!

She could not communicate with words,

Yet she was able to share her thoughts with me!

She did not speak a word,

But pacified me when I was sad, calmed me when I was angry.

I enjoyed every moment of my life with her,

I understood her, and she understood me,

What else you need, but a friend,

In any form be it human or an animal.

I was lucky, that I got her,

She was my best friend, my companion,

My sister, who played with me,

My mother, who cared for me.

She was none other than my bitch- “Gaggo!”

-Vaaruni Agarwal

When I first met Gaggo, she was some 2 months old. It was the month of October and I was on my way to school. Winters were about to start and the environment was chilled. She came to me and started wagging her tail. She wanted something to eat. Therefore, I gave her a piece of bread from my tiffin. Although she was not able to eat the whole piece in one, go she broke it into pieces and then ate it. A couple of days after this incident I saw her sleeping just below my house. It was a chilled October morning and she was probably feeling chilled so she slept in a small pit and rolled herself. I gave her some biscuits to eat. She ate them and later in the evening came to my house. She sat in my dad’s shoes. When I saw this, I went to her and she started wagging her tail again. This time she turned upside down and gave an expression of smiling.

Some days after this incident she used to regularly come to our house and sit at the same place. She was sweet. One day when I was coming back from school she saw me some 100 meters before my house, to my surprise recognized me, and then followed me to my home. The next day when I was going to purchase some goods from the nearby grocery store, she again went with me to the place. There she stood outside the store and waited for me to come back, when I came she just walked with me back to my house. Now, this became her routine, every morning whenever I went to the store she would go with me. One day it took me a little longer to return as there were many people lined up there, so she came inside the store and started looking at everybody’s face as if she was trying to find me. Then I saw her and said “Gaggo”, she instantly responded to my voice and turned to me with no concern that who is there and what’s all is happening and happily followed me on the way back to my house.

Once I was standing on my balcony when I noticed that she was drinking water from the gutter, it was a hot summer afternoon, so I immediately kept some water for her. She used to come daily to drink water from there and once she spilt the water out of the pot and sat on the wet floor. The expression she gave to me after that was priceless. I still remember it– she was like “I’m sorry but I had no choice”. Oh my God! She was looking so cute at that time. Therefore, after that day, I started keeping the place wet for her for the whole of the summers, and she enjoyed sitting there.

The next winters came with news of joy. She gave birth to some six puppies. WOW!!, so my little Gaggo whom I met a year before is now a mother. Those pups were identical to her in colour. Just like her, they were also white in colour with brown patches. After a month they were born, they created a full chaos in the house, as they kept moving here and there. Gaggo was also very happy, always took great care of her pups and would not allow anyone to touch them except my family and me. She was very possessive for them. However, this joy did not last for long as her two pups died of cold. She became very sad and looked depressed. She would not even allow us to remove their bodies. However, somehow, we managed to do that, and then I kept her in my room with her pups for several days, slowly her old happiness returned and she became busy taking care of her pups.

One of them was a male so I named him “Hiran”, the word in the Hindi language means a deer, I named him so because he ran very fast just like a deer. However, there is a story behind Gaggo’s name too. When I first met her, I thought a name for her, I called her “Kakuro”, which is derived from Sanskrit word meaning “dog”. As I didn’t know that she was a female. So, when I came to know her identity I changed her name to “Kakuri”. Once my brother visited us and he used to call her “Gaguri”. She seemed to be very happy on hearing that name, so over time I created a short name for her-“Gaggo”.

One of her female pups was so friendly that she would come to me and sit on my lap whenever she felt cold. However, the others seemed a little scared at the starting but eventually became friendly with us.

I still remember the day when my father expired, Gaggo was sitting, actually mourning where his body was kept. She seemed sad for a couple of days, whenever we opened his shop she would come wagging her tail expecting him. When we tried to sell his stuff she tried to protest it and laid down on the front of the counter of the shop. She was reluctant to move however after much efforts we moved her aside, then she sadly watched the stuff being carried away.

There are many other stories of how she enjoyed every moment of her life with us, and also made my life a lot better with her acts. Stay tuned for the next part of the story, as the real fun stuff is waiting for you!